LCWR leaders meet with doctrinal officials

Carol Glatz|
Catholic News Service

1/01/70

VATICAN CITY - After meeting with top officials of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the head of the
Leadership Conference of Women Religious said she was
thankful for the chance to have an open dialogue about a
recent Vatican-ordered reform of the organization.

Franciscan Sister Pat Farrell, LCWR president, and St. Joseph
Sister Janet Mock, executive director, met with U.S. Cardinal
William J. Levada, prefect of the doctrinal congregation, and
with Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle June 12 to talk
about the mandate.

"We are grateful for the opportunity for open dialogue, and
now we will return to our members to see about the next step"
and decide how to proceed in light of discussions with the
doctrinal office, Sister Pat told journalists immediately
after the meeting.

The LCWR will have an assembly in August, she said, and "we
have no plan other than to take what came from the meeting
today to our members" and decide as a group what the next
step should be.

"We were able to directly express our concerns to Cardinal
Levada and Archbishop Sartain," said Sister Pat said in a
statement released by the LCWR headquarters.

The Vatican statement about the meeting said the encounter
"provided the opportunity for the congregation and the LCWR
officers to discuss the issues and concerns raised by the
doctrinal assessment."

The Vatican said the gathering took place "in an atmosphere
of openness and cordiality."

According to canon law, the Vatican said, the LCWR "is
constituted by and remains under the supreme direction of the
Holy See in order to promote common efforts" and cooperation.

"The purpose of the doctrinal assessment is to assist the
LCWR in this important mission by promoting a vision of
ecclesial communion founded on faith in Jesus Christ and the
teachings of the church as faithfully taught through the ages
under the guidance of the magisterium," the Vatican said.

The June 12 meeting came after the doctrinal congregation
announced in April that a major reform was needed to ensure
the LCWR's fidelity to Catholic teaching in areas including
abortion, euthanasia, women's ordination and homosexuality.

The call for organizational reform came with an eight-page
"doctrinal assessment" that cited "serious doctrinal problems
which affect many in consecrated life." The problems, it
said, were revealed in an assessment originally ordered by
the Vatican in April 2008.

The doctrinal congregation had said that "while there has
been a great deal of work on the part of LCWR promoting
issues of social justice in harmony with the church's social
doctrine, it is silent on the right to life from conception
to natural death, a question that is part of the lively
public debate about abortion and euthanasia in the United
States."

The doctrinal congregation appointed Archbishop Sartain to
provide "review, guidance and approval, where necessary, of
the work" of LCWR, a Maryland-based umbrella group that
claims about 1,500 leaders of U.S. women's communities as
members and represents about 80 percent of the country's
57,000 women religious.

Archbishop Sartain's tasks were to include overseeing the
revision of the LCWR's statutes, the review of its liturgical
practices, and the creation of formation programs for the
conference's member congregations.

He said June 1 that both he and doctrinal congregation
officials "are wholeheartedly committed to dealing with the
important issues raised by the doctrinal assessment and the
LCWR board in an atmosphere of openness, honesty, integrity
and fidelity to the church's faith."

He had said the meeting in Rome would be part of a process of
continuing to "collaborate in promoting the important work of
the LCWR for consecrated life in the United States."

In written statement released June 1, the national board of
the Leadership Conference of Women Religious said it felt the
assessment that led to a Vatican order to reform the
organization "was based on unsubstantiated accusations and
the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency."

The LCWR board called the sanctions "disproportionate to the
concerns raised" and said they "could compromise" the
organization's ability "to fulfill their mission."

In an interview with Catholic News Service in Washington in
early June, Sister Pat said the organization planned to move
slowly and prayerfully, "one step at a time," in
collaboration with LCWR members at the regional and national
levels.

"We need to walk through this one door at a time and to see
how this process unfolds and to follow that path as long as
we can respond with integrity," she said.

One major concern is how differences of opinion or position
are handled in the church, she said. There is a "need for the
opportunity to air differences in a respectful and open way
and the conditions for that kind of dialogue have not always
been present," she said.

She added that "it's no secret that there is a good deal of
polarization in the church in the United States and around
the world, and I think that is something that's at the root
of (the reform order); it's the different visions of church
out of which were operating."

While women religious have taken the Second Vatican Council
and its call for renewal "very seriously" the past half
century, she said, "there are other visions and models of
church that have been growing in the last number of years and
I think that's a tension."

Another source of tension, she had said, was over the
legitimate role and functions of religious women in the life
of the church with respect to its hierarchy. "I think we do
need to do better education about the meaning of religious
life and what is our role in the church that's not always
been understood," she said.